Kiriko Mechanicus

Amsterdam documentary director Kiriko Mechanicus on ethnic fetishes, unusual challenges, and her new documentary on the Atlanta Asian spa murders, set to debut at SXSW in Austin

When news of the 2021 Atlanta massage parlor shootings reached Amsterdam, filmmaker Kiriko Mechanicus felt a chilling connection. "I realized when I had read about this incident that it somehow also felt as if I was part of his sick desire," the Dutch-Japanese filmmaker explains. For her documentary How to Catch a Butterfly, debuting at SXSW, she wrote letters to the killer, Robert Aaron Long, but not with the intent to "demonize him... but more demonize the whole idea how we as people look at Asian women."

Long killed eight people, including six women of Asian descent, and claimed his motive was anger for his own feelings of shame tied to his claimed sex addiction. But Mechanicus sees this incident from the perspective of a culture steeped in ethnic fetishization, wher Asian women are often "reduced to this one thing, which is a butterfly that needs to be caught". For Mechanicus, this film is about reclaiming her identity and finding "personal peace."

Mechanicus delves into the uncomfortable intersection of her personal life and the motives behind the shooting. She admits that her approach—connecting a horrific mass murder to her own dating history—might seem "radical" or even "kind of cuckoo" to some.

She also looks at how it affected her when she was younger, and tried to adopt an "Asian ideal" when in relationships to be desired. But she realized by age 21, "I'm holding up a standard that is not mine."

Her work is driven by a philosophy of "saying yes." "I say yes to everything. And then I have to think about how I'm going to do it," she says. This mindset has led her from studying culinary history to filming undocumented workers for A Tomato Tragedy, and an inadvertent performance of a poem about tomatoes in front of  Italian President Sergio Mattarella.

This fearless creativity is rooted in her upbringing. Born to a Japanese mother and Dutch father, she calls her artistic household "the greatest privilege." "I think my parents are a very essential part of that," she says. "My father was a photographer and writer and my mother is a pianist and performance artist."

 

Big thank you to the partners of this episode:

Prepoos https://prepoos.com/en

FlexiSpot Netherlands https://www.flexispot.nl/

 

Connect with Kiriko:

  / kiriacademy  

Web: https://www.kirikomechanicus.com/

 

Connect with Zack:

LinkedIn:   / zacharynewmark  

Instagram (The Dam Yankee Podcast):   / damyankeepodcast  

Website: https://damyankeepodcast.nltimes.nl/

 

Amsterdam, film, Kiriko Mechanicus, Dam Yankee, Zack Newmark, documentary, documentaries, Documentary film, SXSW, Japan, south by southwest, Atlanta, Georgia, Austin, Texas, United States, Noord-Holland, Italy, Sergio Mattarella